From 2023 to the end of 2024, PETA Asia-Pacific went inside 11 farms and shearing sheds in New Zealand that produce ZQ-certified wool, a sham certification standard developed and owned by The New Zealand Merino Company. The company calls itself “the world's leading ethical wool brand” and claims that “sheep producing the wool are humanely treated”— but as this investigation reveals, there is no such thing as “ethical” or “humane” wool.
See the footage for yourself, and then take action for sheep by urging Allbirds, Fjällräven, Helly Hansen, and LVMH’s Loro Piana to stop hiding behind meaningless ZQ standards and end their use of wool.
Investigators discovered the following:
- Shearers kicked, beat, and stomped on sheep and threw them down chutes. One worker slammed a sheep’s head against a hard wooden board three times.
- Workers whipped, tackled, and hit sheep with various objects, including a ski pole.
- Sheep were left with gaping wounds that were stitched up without painkillers. One worker laughed at a sheep as blood ran down their face from an eye injury.
- Sheep were forced into severely crowded enclosures, leading to one being smothered to death. Her wool was still shorn to be prepared for sale.
- A farmer slit the throat of a conscious sheep after the animal spent days struggling and collapsing. Her body was dumped into a trash pit. It was common for investigators to find dead sheep on the farms.
- Farmers used dogs to terrorize sheep, sometimes biting them. However, even these dogs weren’t spared abuse, as one farmer kicked them in the head and another farmer jabbed a dog several times with a pole.
Workers Kicked, Punched, and Threw Sheep
Investigators documented that workers kicked, stomped on, and punched sheep and hit them with objects, including jabbing one with a ski pole. Some workers appeared to be purposefully aggressive, laughing while tackling sheep and throwing them on their back or saying, “F**k you, c**t,” before violently tossing their bodies down a chute.
Throats Slit and Death Pits
A sheep collapsed several times over two days, and a worker slit her throat and then dumped her body in a pit full of body parts. A farmer said he leaves bodies to decompose in the field or tosses them into an offal pit but that he could get “reported for having dead animals around the place.” Investigators saw many dead sheep on farms, including some dumped in trash pits.
One worker callously said that instead of providing care for sick or struggling sheep, it was “easier” when they died “out of sight, out of mind.”
Violent Sheep Shearing
Shearing is a painful, frightening ordeal for sensitive and cautious sheep. Shearers are usually paid by volume, not by the hour, so the speed with which the cutting is performed leaves most sheep bruised and bleeding. Yet the investigator did not see anyone administer pain relief, even to sheep with gaping wounds.
Sheep Packed So Tightly They Suffocate
During penning, workers pack the sheep so tightly that one worker admitted the sheep were at risk of being smothered. An investigator found a sheep who died after being smothered by her pen mates, and workers still cut the wool from her dead body and put it with that of others.
Sheep Need Their Wool—We Don’t
Sheep are gentle, inquisitive, emotionally complex, and highly intelligent animals. They can distinguish between different expressions in humans and detect changes in the faces of anxious sheep. These personable animals can recognize the faces of at least 50 other sheep and can remember 50 different images for up to two years.
New Place, Same Suffering
PETA entities have now released 15 damning exposés of over 150 wool industry operations on four continents and have documented entrenched suffering in every single one. Companies know that attaching labels like “humane,” “ethical,” or “responsible” to the goods they sell will dupe consumers into believing that they’re buying compassionately produced goods when they’re not.
Are you still wearing wool? If you are, please stop. Now is the time to rid your closet and home of wool and avoid companies selling ZQ wool. We can help end their suffering by refusing to buy anything made of wool and opting only for animal-free materials, such as acrylic, bamboo, cotton, hemp, modal, polyester, rayon, TENCEL, and viscose.
Urge Brands to Ditch Wool
PETA’s exposés from Australia to England, Argentina to the US, and now New Zealand have proved that violence against sheep in the wool industry is pervasive, and we must hold companies accountable for supporting such cruelty. Brands like Allbirds, Fjällräven, Helly Hansen, icebreaker, Smartwool, and LVMH’s Loro Piana use the ZQ certification to market wool—urge them to ditch it now!